State's tough new rules capture mood of growing fury – and are starting to set a national trend

The Observer, Sunday 25 July 2010

Hayworth, a barnstorming Arizona Republican who is campaigning for the Senate, has strong opinions about his state's new law on illegal immigration.

The law, known as SB1070 and due to come into effect this week, requires police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and makes it a crime not to have valid immigration papers on your person. It has prompted Hispanics to fear racial profiling, immigrants to flee the state in droves, activists to organise consumer boycotts and the Obama administration to sue in federal court.

Hayworth has an objection, too. He thinks the law is not enough. Speaking to an overwhelmingly white crowd at a "town hall" meeting in suburban Mesa last week, Hayworth said it was time to stop automatically granting citizenship to anyone born in Arizona. "There is a whole new term: birth tourism. In the jet age there are people who time their gestation period so they give birth on American soil," he declared. State senator Russell Pearce, who helped come up with SB1070, is now pushing for a law along those lines.

By any standards this is extreme stuff. Yet Hayworth, far from being out on the edge of Arizona politics, is a politician on the rise. He is challenging Senator John McCain in a right-wing rebellion that could turf the Republicans' most recent presidential candidate out of the Senate seat he has held since 1986. That this even seems possible shows just how powerful the fear over illegal immigration has become in Arizona.

Fear is everywhere in this state, fuelled by a constant stream of scare stories. There is fear of crime and kidnapping, sparked by immigrants. "It's not racial. It is all about the rule of law," said Bryan Berkland, a 24-year-old pilot in Phoenix who went on to tell stories about massacres and drug smuggling around the Arizona border town of Nogales.

There is fear of a changing country. Hayworth's wife, Mary, said she feared all of America was under threat. "We are so worried about the direction of America. We want our children to have the same freedom and rights that we grew up with," she said.

Or there is a fear that Arizona is now no different to the bloody border provinces of Mexico. "Illegal immigrants are raping and molesting children. We hear about it every day when you turn on the TV," said Martha Payan, a retired nurse from the Phoenix area. "They are all prostitutes and drug mules."

In fact, crime rates across America's southern border are generally decreasing. In Arizona, for example, property crime has fallen 43% since 1995 – the national average drop was 30%. FBI statistics show violent crime in the state is either flat or down slightly. Even the state's hardline governor, Jan Brewer, who regularly paints a dreadful picture of lawlessness, recently admitted that crime in her state was indeed falling.

Yet the atmosphere of debate here remains poisonous. Last week the Obama administration tried to get a court injunction to stop SB1070 coming into place, on the grounds that immigration was subject to federal law, not state law. Outside the Phoenix courthouse where the case was heard, gun-toting anti-immigrant protesters mingled angrily with students and community activists opposed to the law, who chanted "We will not comply!" Under the gaze of vigilant police there was an undercurrent of violence as shouting matches broke out. SB1070 supporter Dustin Greenwood held up a sign saying: "It is racist to allow some people to break the law based on the colour of their skin." A Hispanic woman approached him and shouted: "This a free country!" Greenwood glared at her and pointed at his sign. "Read that. Read that with your eyes," he yelled, adding: "I don't give a fuck what you think."

Such rage is being exploited, not tempered, by politicians all across America. Versions of SB1070 have been proposed in almost 20 other states, from Nebraska to Florida to Rhode Island, and embraced by politicians who want to burnish their conservative credentials. The language they use about illegal immigration can be blood-curdling. "It is a national security threat," Hayworth told the crowd in Mesa. "It is an economic threat and an invasion that must be stopped."

In neighbouring Utah, activists recently drew up a list of 1,300 alleged illegal immigrants, and sent it to the authorities with a note demanding deportations. Some of those on the list proved to be legal US citizens. Many fear that this sort of "internet vigilantism" may just be the start.

"It is racism. It is xenophobia. I know now that I am going to be targeted because of my skin colour," said Carlos Garcia, a Phoenix-born Hispanic and community activist. "I am an American but I have undocumented cousins. They will be impacted by this."

Hard times, he says, have stoked the anger. "The economy is going down and someone needs to be blamed. The undocumented folks are the scapegoats."

That economic insecurity cuts across racial lines. Some of the most vocal supporters of SB1070 in the chaotic protests outside court in Phoenix last week were Hispanic themselves. Payan, the retired nurse, was one, waving an anti-immigrant placard as she explained that she hailed from Puerto Rico. At one stage a black woman walked by a group of mostly white students protesting against SB1070 and yelled: "Go home!". That caused a Chinese-American woman to reply with a shouted "Get out of here!"

Seven arrests were made and hundreds of insults traded. At one point a half-dozen communist activists showed up to sell their party newspaper. "It doesn't have to be like this! There is a different way!" one said through a megaphone as he waved a copy of Revolution. It is doubtful that either the supporters or the opponents of SB1070 would care for the way he had in mind. But it was hard to argue with the man's general point.

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